


a love that dare not speak its name

by orphan_account



Category: The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: M/M, Unbetaed we die like men, i love these two dumbasses so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26068033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Will loved the way he fought: fiercely, without restraint, without remorse, and James loved him all the more for it.
Relationships: Jem Carstairs/Will Herondale
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	a love that dare not speak its name

Will stuck his head out the window and let the cool night air blow over his face. It had been nearly an hour since his parabatai had all but abandoned him to roam London. When Will had informed Jem of this, he had laughed and swatted at him.

  
How rude.

  
He certainly didn’t expect this from Jem. He’d always been the better person between the two. Nightly adventures and scandalous affairs were more of his jig really. Once Jem returned, he would need to have a stern discussion on their respective roles.

  
Will let out another sigh. He had lost count of how many times he had sighed. Perhaps he was turning into one of those woeful damsels in his books. The stirrings of an ill-advised idea began to take form in his head. He wondered if he could steal one of Jessamine’s dresses and perform a long and agonized monologue -

  
His heart leaped in his chest at the sight of a silver haired figure entering the compound. He leaned farther out, planting his hands on the sill and leaning out at a dangerous angle.

  
“Welcome back, you disloyal bastard.” He called out with a wild grin on his face.

  
Jem turned his face up, a pale smear against the darkness and waved.

  
Will raced downstairs, only slowing down at the sight of Jem. He felt warm all of a sudden, as if he had been too close to the furnace.

  
The night had been kind to Jem. His eyes were bright and his cheeks were flushed. A warm smile curved his lips as he appraised Will with a look that was equal parts fond and equal parts exasperated.

  
There was a word for this feeling, wasn’t there? Will could feel it tugging at his mind relentlessly but he couldn’t quite reach it despite how much he tried to chase it. In a fit of desperation, he took a leap of courage and managed to briefly hold it, long enough to know the shape of the word and recognize its familiar weight but not long enough to fully comprehend it.

  
There’s nothing new about the way he smiled at him but the ache in Will’s chest sure was.

The simple truth of it all was that Will loved Jem.

  
Will and Jem. Jem and Will. Their names went along with each other so naturally, as if it was meant to be. To imagine without the other was impossible, a horrific possibility that refused to let itself be envisioned.

  
Just allowing the admission of that finally snared word into his mind, just breathing it into existence felt like a blow that left him breathless. Love, that was what Will had been trying to put a word to. How strange that he, a reader so ravenous, he devoured any book that came his way; he who had so many beautiful, strange words in his arsenal could fail to recognize the simplest and purest one of them all.

  
“Love,”, he whispered in wonder and felt his heart quiver like the string of a bow from which an arrow had been loosened.

  
But his elation deserted him just as swiftly as it had seized him, filling him with hopelessness and dread. He pressed his palm against his parabatai rune, aching with the hopelessness of it all.

Will grabbed Jem’s hands and pushed them back onto the bed, trying to hold him down with the weight of his body as he thrashed and lashed out blindly. Will gritted his teeth as his friend cried out, screaming and sobbing in a mixture of Mandarin and English.

  
“Jem,” he whispered, his voice trembled pathetically. He hated feeling so helpless, resented that Jem had gone somewhere he couldn’t follow, was fighting something that Will couldn’t help to fight as well. All he could do was wait for Jem to return back to him.

  
Something wet slipped down the slope of Will’s nose and plopped onto Jem’s pale cheek. Will was mortified as his vision blurred and his throat burned. His body heaved as a soft keening noise of anguish left his lips, unbidden.

  
“Don’t leave me Jem, I don’t think I could bear to lose you too.”

It took an hour for Jem’s fits to settle down and Jem refused to look at him afterwards, instead he burrowed deeper into his blankets and shut his eyes like he was asleep. He was hardly doing a passable job at pretending to be asleep but Will couldn’t say anything because Charlotte shooed him out of the room so that the Silent Brothers could take a look at Jem. Will nodded stiffly and turned to look at Jem whose back was facing him, trying to will him to look at him. Jem, as if feeling the weight of his glare, only curled into himself further.

“Will,” Charlotte chastised, “Go wait outside for now, I’ll – “

  
Will spun on his heel and fled the room.

Will did what any sensible person would do when they found out that they were kind of hopelessly in love with their childhood best friend. He ran away and hid. In the library, to be specific.

  
Maybe he could hide out here for the rest of his life. A library hermit, it suited him. Then at night, he could creep down for food and whatnot.  
Just like Bertha Rochester. Minus the stabbing business. Yes, that was what he would do.

  
“Will.” Jem called. Just that, his name and nothing more.

  
Will stiffened before sheepishly ducking out from the shelves to where Jem stood. Will felt skittish under his gaze, like an insect splayed and pinned down for observation.

  
“Jem,” his voice came out higher pitched than he would have preferred. Jem’s mouth twitched but other than that, his expression remained severe and distant.

  
“You’re avoiding me. You’ve been running away from me every time since I recovered from our last mission,” he said flatly.

  
Will wanted to protest indignantly, let his passion for drama flare through and maybe send a few tables flying but Jem was no doubt too cross to put up with his antics so he decided to tread lightly.

  
“Yes, I am.”

  
So much for lightly.

  
Jem looked at Will as if he had stabbed him and Will immediately wished he could pluck his words from the air and stuff them back in his mouth.

  
“I told you before when we met that I was dying. I told you already about- “, he paused and took in a deep breath, “I already told you about my past. So why- “

  
“Because- “Will scrambled to cut him off before he could finish, to fix this any way he could, “Because..”

  
For once, words abandoned him and left him staring at Jem like a fool. Unlike with the others, he couldn’t count on twisting his words and intentions that would best serve him. Jem had always been able to see right through him and nothing but honesty would ever be able to appease him.

  
“Because I realized that I couldn’t bear to lose you,” he blurted, momentarily losing himself in countless memories of Jem by his side, “You mean far, far too much to me and it frightened me like nothing had ever before. Losing you would mean losing myself.”

  
Jem stared at him as if he was finally seeing Will, like something that had been obscuring his vision had finally been removed.

  
He let out a brief expulsion of a laugh before placing a hand on his own and tilting his head, “What am I to do with you, William?”

  
“Keep me, of course,” Will replied cheekily and glowed when Jem laughed.

Will didn’t fall into love, no he crashed into it, freefalling with the same blind heedless desperation his father had. But unlike his father, he knew that his story wouldn’t end well, couldn’t end well. Even if they did manage to somehow evade suspicion, their love would have to remain confined in the shadows like a shameful secret. They lived among people who wouldn’t even deign to call what Will and James shared love, but rather a perverse mockery of it.

  
How was it more acceptable for a married man to have a mistress than for a man to love another man?

  
There was a strange sort of comfort that Will could find in these records. Granted, these were the names of those who the Clave had condemned for their love, but they were proof that Will wasn’t alone, that there were people like him who had gone through what he was going through even if all that remained of them were just their names.

  
Everything, every gesture, every look would have to calculated and deliberate. Even a small slip up could easily spell doom for them. There was no mercy for people like them, not in the mundane world and not in the world of Nephilim.

  
How could he put Jem through that?

  
By the Angel, if the Clave knew…

  
Their judgement would be absolute and ruthless. Will had no doubt how this would pan out, they would meet the same fate as many other unfortunate Shadowhunters who fell in love in ways that the Clave dictated were unnatural and unacceptable. Their marks would be stripped and they would be exiled to different corners of the world, never to meet again.

  
Assuming Jem even lives that long, a traitorous voice whispered in his mind. Will flinched and shut the book with more force than he had intended. Pain lanced through him and tears pricked his eyes. His fingers curled into fists and his nails dug bloody moons into his palm. Even the thought losing Jem made his breathing quicken and his chest tighten with terror.

  
He couldn’t imagine a world without Jem, it was impossible. There was no Will without Jem. He was his other half, his better half, the only part of him that made sense. He had no doubt that if someone were to open up his body, they would find bits and pieces of Jem inside, woven into the fabric of his soul: his unexpected sweet words, his wry smile, his brilliant and sly humor. Just as he knew that Jem had parts of him too and would continue holding on to well after he crossed over, guarding the last shreds of Will’s humanity with the passion of a selfish lover.

  
When Jem would leave the world, Will had no doubt that he would be right behind him.

Will slid his hand through Jem’s silver locks, marveling at how they slipped between his fingers like silk before dipping down and pressing his lips on Jem’s. Experimental, light, waiting to see what Jem would do next. He felt a tremor run through Jem’s body like a jolt of electricity before Jem kissed him back, his lips bruising and his fingers digging into Will’s waist to pull him closer, closer until there was barely an inch between them.

  
Will tilted his head back, his eyelashes fluttering as Jem began to press fervent kisses down the column of his throat. This – this all-consuming hunger – this was what people sang songs about and composed poetry about and fought wars for. This and this and this.

  
Hands that wander and lips that seek and words that smoothen and soften the wild, uninhabitable chasms in their chests into homes to burrow themselves in.

He felt like he could get drunk on just the touch of Jem’s skin alone. He certainly felt drunk, like he had feasted on the most exquisite wine, heady and intoxicating. Maybe that would explain why he climbed into Jem’s lap and kissed him back with even more fervor, with a single-minded determination to not be outdone. He found himself whispering things that he never would have before, yet here he was surrendering his darkest secrets like a particular pious devotee would offer up to his god.

  
Jem flushed darkly with a pleased expression as he heard Will babble, his eyes glazed over like he had taken a particularly high dose of yin fen.

  
“Will”, he whispered, his voice hoarse and raw as if he was coming undone which made Will feel a strange, wicked sort of pleasure and satisfaction.

  
Will pulled back to look at him, his warm, calloused hands still bracketing his lover’s face. Jem’s hair was disheveled and stood up in different directions from Will raking his fingers through it and his lips were red and swollen like an overripe fruit. But it was his eyes that made his heart stutter in his chest, he had never had someone look at him that way.

  
If he could, he wanted Jem to always look at him like that, like he was something to hold in awe and wonder.

  
He had never felt quite like this before, so tender and vulnerable and content.

  
Will swiped his thumb on the swell of Jem’s cheeks and sighed before leaning forward to rest his forehead on Jem’s.

  
“Jem, my Jem.”


End file.
